TECH NEWS
External attack surface management
External Attack Surface Management (EASM) is an essential cybersecurity approach that organizations today must adopt to gain an attackers view of their external digital footprint. EASM involves continuously identifying, prioritizing, monitoring, and managing an organization's digital attack surface exposed on the internet, including servers, applications, and other resources accessible from outside the organization's internal network. To better understand EASM, we spoke with an expert in this field and asked him a few questions.
December 21, 2023
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External Attack Surface Management (EASM) is an essential cybersecurity approach that organizations today must adopt to gain an attackers view of their external digital footprint. EASM involves continuously identifying, prioritizing, monitoring, and managing an organization’s digital attack surface exposed on the internet, including servers, applications, and other resources accessible from outside the organization’s internal network. To better understand EASM, we spoke with an expert in this field and asked him a few questions.
Q1. Concept
The concept of External Attack Surface Management and the value for organizations today.
EASM is essential because it helps organizations understand and mitigate risks associated with these exposed assets, thereby reducing the likelihood of successful cyberattacks.
Q2. Challenges for your organization
Common challenges faced by organizations in managing their external attack surface.
Common challenges include the vast and dynamic nature of the external attack surface, difficulty in identifying all internet-facing assets, the rapid evolution of cyber threats, and limited visibility into how these assets are exposed to potential attackers. Additionally, keeping up with the constant changes in technology and security landscapes is a significant challenge for many organizations.
Q3. EASM vs. Cybersecurity
How does EASM differ from traditional cybersecurity approaches?
The EASM outward-focused approach is crucial in today’s digital landscape, where threats are increasingly sophisticated and can originate from any part of the globe.
Q4. Dealing with cyber threats How does EASM help in detecting and mitigating potential cyber threats?
EASM provides comprehensive visibility into an organization’s external digital presence, identifying exposed assets and attack surface. It uses various tools and techniques to monitor the internet facing infrastructure continuously, detecting changes, misconfigurations, and new attack vectors. By doing so, it enables organizations to prioritize and fix these issues before they can be exploited by cybercriminals.
Q5. AI’s function
The role of artificial intelligence in the future of EASM.
Q6. Use case
An example of how EASM could successfully prevent a cyber attack.
Sure, one common example would be a financial institution that applies an EASM solution to monitor its external digital assets continuously. The platform can detect a misconfigured server exposing sensitive customer data. By quickly identifying and rectifying this misconfiguration, the institution can prevent a potential data breach that could have significant financial loss and reputational damage.
Q7. Advice
Advices for starting to implement EASM
Q8. Future of EASM
The evolution of EASM for the next five years.
The future of EASM will likely involve more advanced AI and machine learning capabilities, enhancing the ability to predict and preemptively address potential cyber threats. There will be greater integration with other cybersecurity tools and systems, providing more holistic security postures. Additionally, as organizations increasingly adopt cloud services and IoT, EASM will evolve to address the unique challenges posed by these technologies.
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